[meteorite-list] Rover Finds More Signs of Water on Mars

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Jun 8 16:31:35 2004
Message-ID: <200406082031.NAA03196_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=624&e=1&u=/ap/20040608/ap_on_sc/mars_rovers

Rover Finds More Signs of Water on Mars
By JOHN ANTCZAK
Associated Press
June 8, 2004

LOS ANGELES - NASA's Mars rover Spirit has found more evidence of past
water activity on the Red Planet, mission scientists said Tuesday.

The findings were announced as Spirit's twin, Opportunity,
was being readied to enter a deep crater halfway around the
planet to explore exposed layered rock that should give
scientists a view farther back into Mars' past. That move
carries the risk that it may not be able to leave Endurance
Crater.

Spirit's new evidence is a high concentration of salt in a trench
dug by the rover in the vast Gusev Crater region, which it has
been exploring since landing on Jan. 3, said Cornell University
astronomer Steve Squyres, the mission's main scientist.

The rover made measurements of the trench surfaces with its
alpha X-ray spectrometer, an instrument that measures the
elemental chemistry.

"We have found more evidence of salts, more evidence for the
action of water - much more compelling evidence than we have
found anywhere else at Gusev," Squyres told a televised press
conference at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
where the mission is managed.

The scenario may have been water percolating through the
subsurface, dissolving material from rocks, he said.

"Now we're not talking about big standing bodies of liquid
water. You don't need a lake to do this. You can perfectly well
do this with small amounts of water percolating through the
soil," he said.

Spirit's findings have shown that water activity at Gusev was
less extensive than at Opportunity's site in the Meridiani
Planum region, which mission officials say was once drenched.

The trench was dug en route to its next target, a set of hills
that scientists have named Columbia.

Opportunity landed at Meridiani Planum on Jan. 24, rolling
into a tiny crater dubbed Eagle, which it has since left.

NASA announced in March that Opportunity's study of an outcrop
in Eagle Crater showed that the rocks were once soaked with
liquid water and conditions would have been suitable for life,
although it was unknown if life ever did exist there.

Major evidence at that location included a large amount of
crystalized salt inside rock, indicating it was dissolved in
water and then left behind when the water evaporated. Other
evidence included an iron sulfate mineral called jarosite
that requires water to form.

The rovers have completed their primary mission and are in an
extended phase.
Received on Tue 08 Jun 2004 04:31:22 PM PDT